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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/AdventurousRun6351 on 2024-12-23 20:01:18+00:00.

Tamix was not too pleased with his current assignment. Normally, he wouldn’t complain about his job. He loved it; it was the one he had always wanted and had worked so hard to achieve. But like all dream jobs, it had its problems, and that problem was a Terran called Skyler.

Tamix was a member of the Horraminx, a race that existed during the Ineergaltic Congresstions’ Bronze Age. They were medium-sized upright creatures resembling what Terran called a vole, whatever that was. Shades of brown and cream decorate her furry body with a long, pink, wiggly nose, beady black eyes, small round ears, and a short hairless tail. During their integration, they gladly took up the role of planetary exploration, charting, mapping, and classifying known planets with habitable atmospheres and any life present, intelligent or otherwise. However, as time goes on and things improve, old information needs updating or gets lost. So, the Horraminx take it upon themselves to rechart, remap, and reclassify planets.

While Tamix loves to travel the void of space and chart the surfaces of planets and the stars they surround, she doesn’t like traveling with company. Horraminx is solitary by nature, and due to the orders of the high council, she is required to have a second person traveling with her for safety. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but her co-worker was someone she couldn’t stand!

Skyler was a mess, to put it kindly. He was cheerful, loud, and overly friendly. He had wild red hair that he only tied back into a ponytail or bun, tanned skin with tons of freckles, and eyes so blue it hurt her eyes to look at them directly. Horraminx likes calm and quiet, which is why she likes her job so much. She also had the freedom to chart planets however she wanted as long as she did it within the given time bracket. She even got to bring her own personal mount with her to explore the planet’s surface, as long as it had a breathable atmosphere.

Goldie was a Fleet Mare, a species native to her planet. Fleet mares were used as a source of food, transportation, and work. While they weren’t strong, they were fast and quick. They have colored shades of green and blue with long, spindly legs, oval bodies with no hair, no tails, long necks, and oval heads with three eyes set upon stalks. They made the most pleasant soft sounds, which were like humming or soft chirps, hardly smelled, and were as gentle as a flower. Goldie was her best friend, and they had been together since she was a pink-colored colt. In addition, she had three golden stripes running the length of her body since birth, thus her name.

Skyler also had his own mount that Tamix despised. A creature called a donkey that was named Little Laugh or LL for short. While Goldie was long, sleek, and elegant, LL couldn’t be any more of the opposite if he tried. It was short, stubborn, gross, smelled, and made the most horrible sounds ever produced by any creature! Everything about this thing was nearly as awful as Skyler if Skyler didn’t bathe and was even more unyielding.

LL would flap his lips and wag his tongue, spreading saliva everywhere for attention. Its body stank almost as bad as the food it ate but not half as bad as the feces it produced. Tamix couldn’t handle the creature since it only listened to Skyler, and it would try to buck her if she pushed LL too far. Sometimes, he would nip at her to get a reaction. And the sound it made, braying as Skyler called it, was so loud and unnecessary for any animal to have. And LL did it all the time for seemingly no reason! Goldie had none of these flaws. And Skyler loves the hell out of it.

But her mind changed when they went to the planet of Okara in the Flee-Flay system. A planet that was half the size of Terra Prime and was host to a breathable atmosphere, three lake-sized oceans, an open plain with rolling hills, a single mountain range where fresh water flowed into streams, and small patches of forests. At first, this planet was considered a class 5 deathworld, but now Tamix was considering reclassifying it as a class 7 deathworld for several reasons. Besides the size of the planet, amount of biodiversity, and rising elevations, the terrain had changed significantly with another ocen lake opening and the recent discovery of several kinds of airborne particles, plants, and undiscovered animals, most of which were predatory. Definitely worth the higher classification.

But Skyler didn’t agree. She saw that the whole planet wasn’t too different from her home country of Midwest America, which wasn’t deadly as long as you weren’t too relaxed and unobservant away from any civilization. But the high council had their ways and methods for classifications, and his words wouldn’t dissuade them or Tamix. So, the classification stayed.

When they finally got onto the planet’s surface, Tamix calibrated the drones to start mapping the planet. Typically, people in her profession could let the machines do all the work for them from the safety of the ship. But Tamix wanted to explore and take it all in, so after the drones went out to take measurements and record topography, she saddled up Goldie and packed the essentials, including her eco blaster, a gun that shot high-pressured sound waves; she set off to record plant life, take pictures of the scenery for the report, and reclassify any animals she came across.

Unfortunately for her, Skyler joined her with LL. While Tamix wanted a calm and relaxing walk across the hills, Skyler made it more of a game than anything. Trying to get her to race, trying to whistle but having it come out as raspberries, yelling to hear the echo, and, of course, there was LL. All it wanted to do was try to play with Goldie, who wanted to have it, nip playfully at Tamix no matter how many times she hissed at him, and try to get into every picture she took while lifting its lips and showing his teeth. Skyler thought it was hilarious, but Tamix wasn’t laughing.

But with all their flaws, she could deny two things. Humans were resourceful, strong, and quick. Skyler could set up a tent, make a fire, and prepare food in half the time she could. And LL was far stronger than he looked, able to carry Skyler, who wasn’t small, and all other camping equipment for when it was needed. Eventually, they took a break by a small bracket of woodland at the top of a hill, which overlooked a large view well into the horizon.

Tamix demounted and decided to set up a few cameras to capture a pantomimic view of everything around them. Skyler dismounted from LL and allowed him to run off and frolic, even with all the stuff it carried. He only returned to ask for the items to be removed so they could roll around in the grass or down the hill. All the while, Goldie stood silently and calmly next to Tamix, gently nibbling the grass and glaring at LL.

As the cameras recorded images, Sklyer finally became silent. He lay on the grassy hill and looked up at the rolling clouds with a piece of grass in his mouth. LL found a loose root from a tree to play around with before throwing it into the air and chasing after where it fell.

Tamix watched this and finally spoke to Skyler, asking him, “Seriously, why do you like that gross, smelly, loud creature so much? It’s so stubborn and crazy.”

“I don’t see why you don’t like him. Donkeys are great. Sure, they’re strange, but you would be two if you were the redheaded stepchild of the equine family.” Skyler playfully argued back while spitting the grass out of his mouth.

“Any other reasons?”, Tamix asked back while checking how the pictures came out.

“They are smart, strong, and very self-sufficient. While horses will entrust you with their lives, a donkey will preserve its own and know how to do it. If they like you, they’ll make sure to protect you as well.”, Skyler explained while standing up to get a snack from one of the sacks.

Tamix looked over at Ll again and saw him scratching his butt on a boulder while making a strange face. She sighed and said, “Charming. Can’t imagine such a small creature doing little more to protect itself other than screaming.”

Seeing that the pictures came out nicely and that it was still noon, she decided to go to another area before calling it a day. Seeing that the canteen was already empty, she looked around and saw a small river running nearby. So she told Skyler, who smiled and waved her off, “Im gonna go get a drink from the river. I’ll be back in a second.”

Suddenly, LL stopped scratching his butt and stood up fast with his ear held high and eyes scanning the area. As he saw Tamix starting to walk down the hill, he ran up to her, braying louder than he normally did, scaring her back to Skyler!

She ran back to the man to hide behind him, especially from the sound, and yelled, “Oh geez! What’s he yelling about this time?”

“Not sure, this is a different kind of bray.”, Skyler admitted while approaching Ll and petting his muzzle to calm him down. “What’s wrong, LL? You hear something.”

He still didn’t calm down and still made growling noises as he tried to push him and Tamix away from the hill. Skyler tried to look around for whatever was spooking him until his eyes fell upon a shape in the grass near the woods. When he looked closer, he saw a creature that resembled a cougar from Terra Prime but longer, had six limbs, and was colored a shade of purple so dark it looked black. Its eyes were amber, and it slinked through the grass but stopped when Sky…

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